Bangin' on your Eardrum
by Nicole Silverwolf
Summary: From the songmeme on livejournal. Drabbles written in the span of and inspired by a song.
1. Chorus

Disclaimer: Not Mine. The End.

From the meme that was running around Livejournal a few months back.

Comments are always welcome.

Bangin' on Your Eardrum

By, Nicole Silverwolf

**James Horner- _The Rocketeer Main Title/Takeoff_**

Two weeks out from Mission City and while the bruises were finally starting to fade (at least the ones that weren't bone deep) there was something that still wasn't quite right. Sam had been hospitalized for a few days then taken home...by his parents...in their regular car.

Bumblebee was nowhere to be seen.

Sam couldn't quite hide the concern.

Until the early morning beep woke him from a dream swiftly forgotten. He was out the door in two minutes flat.

"Bee!" he confirmed with no small hint of joyous relief in his tone.

Sitting in his driveway and conspicuously framed by a brightly painted semi and a retrofitted Hummer was a good as new Camaro.

**J.A.C. Redford - _Bedtime Story: Oliver & Company_**

He couldn't speak and it turned out that when you didn't speak a _**WHOLE**_ lot of Autobots seemed to think you didn't hear or have anything to say either.

Possibly permanent damage and loss Ratchet had cautioned. Bumblebee knew the medic was trying his hardest to find a solution and if anyone could it would likely be him, but there was a reality.

Somehow, he'd gone from competent and decorated field scout and the commander of a squad to something nearly invisible. It was beyond frustrating.

Jazz had suggested it first. Leave it to a musician to see the solution.

"Music, kid. Someone I once talked to called it the universal language."

It wasn't perfect, and it took a long time to figure out how best to use sometimes awkward poetic phrasing to communicate concrete thoughts, but when Optimus asked for volunteers for the Allspark search, he didn't remain silent for an instant.

**Foo Fighters _Learn to Fly_**

He didn't miss the others too often. The mission for the most part saw to that. Who knew there were so many people who had once been named Witwicky (or some subsidiary of that) on the planet?

And on the days when he missed his friends and Energon and a myriad of things he'd left behind--he'd race into the wind. Highways were some of Earth's best things, besides it's endless music choices. Jazz would love it here if he made it, the twins too if they'd survived the collapse of Cybertron.

Once in a great while he'd shine that beacon too, up and up into the thousands of stars and hope that maybe someone was out there just looking for a sign to head towards.

**Billie Holiday _Pennies from Heaven_**

Mikaela had never much considered jazz music. Not even after Mission City and the sacrifice of one Autobot who'd named himself after the style. She'd downloaded a friend's mp3 collection to her battered Ipod on a whim and a search for something she hadn't listened too yet.

Maybe she'd discover a new artist she liked.

She was playing it from a set of speaker's she'd found in the repair bay while taking lessons from the CMO.

"It reminds me of him," Ratchet had offhandedly commented.

Something old school was always playing on the base after that.

**Talib Kweli _Going Hard_**

The war didn't start in a frantic moment or in a single act. It was a slow burn, and some said that Megatron had simply become the most vocally disgusted with the infrastructure that marginalized the weak, poor and destitute.

There were protests. Peaceful demonstrations that grew larger, then eventually more violent.

Restrictions suddenly appeared from everywhere. Restrictions on the written word, the types of bills that could be presented to the Senate, where bots could go and when.

The slogans that slathered the walls of alleys and streets became clearer.

Those who would turn in their freedom for protection deserved neither.

**Masami Ueda _Uepkeeper I: Okami Soundtracks_**

It was a very quiet morning when they left for Tyger Pax. They were an impressive cadre of bots who stood waiting for their orders.

Optimus checked himself carefully one more time, to both make sure he looked the commander he was and to check to make sure he was armed for this.

**Jose Gonzales _Fold_**

Sam had spent hours on this remote beach and Bumblebee couldn't really see why. It was quiet here and he seemed content to walk slowly along the breakers, turning stones over and occasionally pocketing something of interest to him.

A smoothly rounded flat pebble.

A shell.

A piece of glass blasted by sand so it was frosted oddly.

When pressed Sam couldn't really offer an explanation, just that it was peaceful. Bumblebee understood a bit more then. And they made trips as often as possible to the beach.

**Rei Kondoh _The Sun Rises: Okami Soundtracks _**

"Ready?"

Sam nodded minutely, still scared beyond everything he had felt before.

"We'll protect you Sam," and it was an echo from their first ever battle together. He drew courage from it and the circle of friends around him.

Sucking in a deep breath he took off, running like mad along the strip of land. He wasn't clutching the Allspark this time but somehow wished he was.

He could see Mikaela and Will off out of the corner of his eye fighting and alive and likely to stay that way with how protective Ratchet and Ironhide could be, felt Bumblebee at his back and saw the goal before them.

"We're coming Optimus, just hold on," he muttered as he scrambled for the first hold on the ship and focused his energy on getting through the traps while they held off the Decepticons.

He could tell from the moment he laid eyes on the Autobot leader how bad it was. But then the huge bot reached out for him anyways.

"Sam?"

"It's..."

**Vertical Horizon _Goodnight My Friend_**

It was very late at night, too late to head home and risk waking his parents so Sam had opted to stay on the base until the next day. Only problem was that he couldn't sleep. It was one of those anniversaries.

One month since the end of Mission City. One month since he'd destroyed Megatron and the Cybertronian's most important relic.

He didn't think about it all the time, nor obsess about it. But sitting out here on the roof wrapped in a blanket and staring at so many stars, wondering if one of them was the far distant Cybertron, he couldn't sleep.

He hadn't wanted to kill anyone, nor destroy something so important. Though no one knew about it he'd vowed to help these people his friends until the day he died, no matter what it took.

It didn't seem so much like penance because he couldn't imagine anywhere he'd rather be. This was what he wanted.

**Nakagawa Shougu _Sora Iro Days: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Opening Theme_**

Bumblebee couldn't really imagine life on Earth without his human family. They were all sorts of insane and weird. But they were his to protect.

Sitting outside the large field near the school where his two youngest friends were doing something called 'graduating' he saw thousands of black squares fly into the air (what was the significance of that he wondered), and about an hour later the two of them came breathlessly running up to him all smiles and barely contained joy.

They'd told Sam's and Mikeala's parents about Autobots many months earlier and they also seemed extremely pleased as they walked up to find the two teenagers conversing with the car without a care.

_So...comments, criticisms, flames, praise...anything you'd like to throw at me? Please do so now! _

_Thanks for reading._


	2. Coda

Disclaimer: Not Mine. Still. The end.

Comments are always welcome.

**Death Cab for Cutie **_**What Sarah Said **_

"Don't die." was all he could keep repeating as his fingers went numb pinching off Energon lines, hands covered in the internal fluids that made up Autobots. He didn't dare to let up the pressure on the line that clearly led to something vital. The medic was cursing somewhere above his view and he saw Mikaela every few seconds as she raced around helping him.

Sam couldn't stop from thinking it over and over again. _They were watching him die._ "Please. Please. Please," and he couldn't tell if he was asking a deity or begging the mech below him but the results **had** to be the same.

The fact that he could feel the fluids fighting to get out from between his fingers had to mean something good...

**Bruce Springsteen _Further on Up the Road_**

It was impressive watching them race down the highways. Anything but inconspicuous and yet it strangely fit to see these particular vehicles somehow owning the road that they'd never driven before. The beat up old van sitting on the shoulder with a bunch of granola munching backpackers trying to fix the engine paused to watch them fly by.

**Joe Hisaishi _Sheeta's Decision:Castle in the Sky_**

In his office--bunker in reality--awake long after he should have gone to recharge Prime looked at the pad in front of him. Details of a plot unheard of till now sat awaiting his signature and consequent approval. He did not want to do this, the risk seemed to outweigh any benefit that might come from it.

The Allspark.

Was it even possible to destroy it?

**Gustav Holst _Excerpt from 'The Planets' _**

Sam always felt small among the Autobots: figurative, literal, it didn't really make a difference how you put it. So it was somewhat overwhelming to have Optimus Prime thank him. Even more so for suddenly the entirety of the Autobots, nearly a hundred strong years after the Allspark was lost, to agree. To nearly bow to him one odd afternoon that seemed to hold some significance to them.

He'd voiced the opinion quite often that he hadn't done anything special, had actually destroyed their future by destroying the Allspark. Most of the bots he'd now spent years with as a liaison and friend knew this rhetoric all too well.

Prime offered a hand at the protest this time and lifted him, a too fast ride nearly 28 feet into the air. Clutching at a thumb for balance Sam could see all of New Iacon and the surrounding base that housed their many human allies spread before him--a beacon in the desert. Living, prospering, and _happy_.

"Thank you for _this_ Sam." Optimus insisted.

**Arovane _Goodbye Forever_ **

There was certainly ceremony to be performed, unknown traditions to be followed that they couldn't have known about until this moment.

Jazz had been restored to look as if he'd never been harmed at all. Explanations about how sparks could not be replaced had assuaged Sam's earnest belief that they could save him if they just repaired the damages.

Sam and Mikeala both had been honored to be allowed to watch despite not knowing Jazz that well.

It was a moment they wouldn't soon forget.

And then the stories had started, to teach them more about the friend they'd barely gotten to know.

**John Hiatt _Child of the Wild Blue Yonder_**

Mikaela heard the engine a block before it turned the corner and she thought nothing of the state of her hair or her dress. It was decent enough and besides, she was off with the guys.

Sam was sitting in Bee's driver's seat, all smiles and that excitement he always exuded.

A wave over her shoulder and a sincere "Seeya later Dad!" she rushed to the car behind the yellow Camaro and her very own friend/guardian. Her father watched her go, hands on his hips and not quite sure when his baby girl had grown up so quickly.

They took off into the early sunshine and as they merged onto the highway, she couldn't imagine anywhere else she'd rather belong.

**Thomas Newman _Nemo Egg_**

"Do you know where you'll go now?"

It was an honest and concerned question. The young woman stood very still at the door to the garage. She balanced a wrench in one hand and a rag in the other, looking over the yellow Camaro that had fallen into her backyard nearly two months ago.

"Not yet. But I'll know when I find it."

There was a dip in the fender of thanks and then the car was gone.


End file.
